"Shady Bizzness: " Life as Eminem's Bodyguard in an Industry of Paper Gangsters" by Byron Williams

was damn sure important to my family, but I knew
it didn’t mean shit to Slim and Paul. Finally, we worked out a deal on a life
insurance policy, and that was the best thing that came of that drama.
    Slim didn’t take the beef seriously, as long as it wasn’t in his face. I
was reading everything I could get my hands on to educate myself on the
West Coast culture. I read books on Death Row, gangs, Aftermath, EazyE—anything that could teach me something. I read about the past so that
I could learn things to help me out in the present, so that I would make
it to the future. What I was dealing with was way bigger than me—it was
bigger than life. These cats in California don’t believe in fistfighting, they
are all about the gun smoke. They only care about who smokes who first.
Personally, I have no interest in being caught up in the midst of any of
that. I decided to call Slim and have a heart-to-heart. I say, “Look, Slim,
the bottom line is we need some bulletproof vests. I have called around
to several places, and they don’t have vests in my size in stock. They say
it’s going to take three weeks to get my size in, but I don’t have time to sit
around in California for three weeks with no vest on. ” They had vests to
fit Slim because he is a small guy, but I wasn’t about to be unprotected
while he was protected. The only place I found that had my size was in
Detroit. The thing was, if Slim was wearing a vest, then I was wearing a
vest, too. So I said, “Look, Paul has finally decided to get us some vests.
Finally. I think you should take Jimmy Iovine up on his offer to pay for
you to record somewhere else, like in New York, San Francisco, or Miami.
” Slim said he liked recording in LA, so he wasn’t going to record at any
of those other studios. This conversation caused conflict between me and
Slim because I could tell by the tone of his voice that it wasn’t about him
liking to record out in LA, it was about him trying to prove that he was
some tough little white boy who wasn’t afraid of Death Row. But he was
afraid, and I knew it. He was scared.
    I said, “Look, man, everybody knows you can hold your own, man.
But you keep in mind that dead rappers don’t make any money, man. We
are in over our heads here. We are sitting in the lion’s den. We need to
go home and let this cool off for a couple of days. Paul has finally agreed
to pay for the vests, and I am going home to get us some vests and try
to bring a gun back. You can stay here if you want to. I am going home
because that is the only place I can find my size vest right now. ” He took
this like I just wanted to go home and see my family, so the conversation
got on a personal level at this point. I said, “Look, man, don’t hate me
because my home situation is better than yours.You need to go home and
handle that problem, anyway. I can’t help it if my wife and kids want to
and love to see me. Don’t be mad because my wife doesn’t tell me I have
to stay in a hotel and that she doesn’t tell me that I can’t even drive the
car that I bought. My family loves to see me, so of course I am going to see
them when I go home, but I am going to get us some vests, and I will be
right back out. ” I said I would try to bring a gun, but it would be difficult
to do so since airport security knew whom I was affiliated with and had
started to do random searches on me.
    I told him I wasn’t going to jeopardize my future and my life trying
to smuggle an illegal gun in, though. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to bring
back a weapon, but while I was gone, I arranged for an armed off-duty
police officer whom we had worked with before to stay with Slim. The
officer and I worked something out that when I came back he would have
a 9 mm and a 12-gauge shotgun pump for me.At home, I had already made
arrangements with Paul and Slim’s accountant to pay for the vests and all
the hardware that came with them, like